Heavy snow either side of Christmas and freezing temperatures pushed the cost of Solihull's winter service over the half-a-million pound mark.

A report this week revealed that the adverse weather in 2017/18 had left the council with total costs of £506,000.

The bill exceeded the budget by £105,000 and the local authority has been forced to dip into its reserves to plug the gap.

Having conceded that the money currently being put aside is not sufficient even for an average year, with funding routinely drawn from other areas, the council now intends to pump more cash ( around £72,000) into its dedicated winter services budget.

Pictured children and families go sledding in the snow in Elmdon Park, Solihull.

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Responding to Cllr Hamilton's comments, he said: "When it gets cold [the gritting] is less effective and it also relies on the action of traffic. Traffic has to work the salt into the road surface."

He had also suggested that more needed to be done to manage the public's expectations about the response, acknowledging that the call centre had been "inundated" with enquiries.

The report presented to Solihull's stronger communities and neighbourhood services scrutiny board revealed that there had been almost six inches of snow in certain places and during the coldest weather the mercury had plummeted to -8 degrees Celsius.

By the end of the season, 53 gritting runs had been carried out, compared to an average of 42 over the past 12 years.

A total of 2,765 tonnes of salt were used during the winter and an extra 500 tonnes had been delivered in early March, amid concerns that the supply at the Moat Lane depot was dwindling and that there was still a risk of further snow.